Saturday, August 15, 2009

While recovering from her leg fracture, Marlowe was barred from using the stairs for 11 weeks. Amusingly, she seems to have forgotten how to use them. She gets up just fine, but halfway down she stops, sits, and looks around like, "Hunh. Now what?" (If you're sensing that there might be a lot of Marlowe pictures for the rest of this project, you're probably right. This is also the only picture I took today.)

I went back to the harbor just so I could take and post another picture of it. The title, by the way, is true. It was very, very hot and sunny and I desperately needed a drink. This is what happens when you make unplanned stops, Project 365.

Project 365 rears its ugly head. Today marks the first day I stopped somewhere specifically to take a picture. I've driven past what I believe is the Outer Harbor twice a day for almost a year now, almost every time thinking, "That looks nice. I should stop and check it out some day." I don't actually care for using large bodies of water and boats - I can't swim and I hate sitting in the sun for long periods of time - but I do like looking at them. I kinda like how you can see downtown Buffalo along the horizon.

My job is difficult. There are days I come home and wonder why I've insisted on working there for seven years now. But it is full of small pleasures and one of those small pleasures is first and second grade handwriting. I love it.

As long as the kids aren't being a handful, I usually participate in art class. I find it relaxing and they seem to like it when I work alongside them. Sometimes I make things and then I don't know what to do with them as was the case with this paper snake. Still, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.

One of my kids has been trying to teach me how to play Yu-Gi-Oh! I feel like he's speaking a foreign language. He assured me that it would get easier once I got familiar with all the different cards. "You have to know the cards in your heart and trust the cards in your heart."

Friday, August 7, 2009

My commute to work is about half an hour but I love it because it mostly travels along Lake Erie. I'm forever trying to take pictures of the view but it's all highway, most of it without much room to pull over, so I'm stuck taking pictures out the window while I drive. In other words, not the best method for getting a great picture. I like this one okay though. That's the Peace Bridge to Canada.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I have no idea what this sticker is or means. I do know that one of my kids came back from speech with it, slapped it on my arm, and said, "This is for you because you're doing a great job!" I moved it to the front of my (totally awesome classic logo Sabres) shirt and proudly wore it the rest of the day.

My desk at work. Because of the potential for aggression and explosiveness with my kids, I can't have anything nice or breakable laying around but that nameplate has lasted a number of years now. I made it in tech class with the kids a few years ago - helpeful little hands added the pencil marks on the white letters some time this year - and despite being tossed around a number of times now, it's still standing.

The elephant is a more recent addition. At the end of the school year, the lifeguard brought out a pile of beanie babies and told the kids they could all pick one. One of them said, "Can Miss Heather have one too? Elephants are her favorite!" So nice to know they do occasionally hear what I'm saying to them.

So I have these friends, Pookie and Schnookie. For the last year they've been participating in something called Project 365. The only guideline for the project is this: Every day for a year, you share one photo. That's it. The photo can be anything you want and it can mean anything you want. It can be with a fancy camera, it can be with the worst quality cell phone. The only thing that matters is that it's one picture every day.

I've been following Pookie and Schnookie's photo stream all year and looking at it now that they're almost done, it seems like a really cool way to commemorate a year, especially those little mundane things that often get overlooked when you're taking pictures. A lot of people have mentioned using Project 365 as a way to hone their photography skills and while I probably will occasionally take a really pretty picture of something, one that's carefully composed and lit, that's not really my goal. I just want to document some of the moments of the next 365 days.